Canada’s Minister of Science and Sport Kirsty Duncan and the Coaching Association of Canada will announce today two initiatives to address abuse and harassment in sport.
Click on the video player above at 9 a.m. ET to watch it live from Ottawa.
Calls for action followed an investigation by CBC News and Sports that revealed at least 222 coaches involved in amateur sports over 20 years have been convicted of sex offences involving over 600 victims under age 18.
“No athletes should ever have to live through sexual abuse or harassment,” Duncan said. She said the investigation “broke her heart.
“This has helped shine a spotlight on the seriousness of abuse, discrimination and harassment in sports, and that in turn can drive change.”
The investigation by CBC News and Sports involved searching through thousands of court records and media articles, and visiting courthouses across Canada. What emerged, for the first time, was a detailed database of sexual offences committed by amateur athletic coaches.
The charges include offences such as sexual assault, sexual exploitation, child luring, and making or possessing child pornography. Most but not all the victims were athletes training with a coach; in all cases, the accused was charged between 1998 and 2018, but the offences may have occurred earlier.
A number of high-profile sexual assault complaints involving national team coaches prompted Duncan to announce new rules last week in Red Deer, Alta.
Beginning in 2020, sport organizations that receive federal funding must have a policy to address abuse and provide mandatory training to their members.
They must also report incidents of abuse directly to the minister and will be required to make an independent third party available to hear athlete-abuse allegations — something athletes from a number of national teams have been pushing to get put in place.
Experts say these ideas will help athletes competing at a national level, but question what they will do for the hundreds of thousands of Canadian athletes who aren’t at the elite level.
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